Cookie

Making these glittering treats is easy enough for elves of all ages and skill levels.

This recipe starts with our favorite sugar cookie dough. Using a simple watercolor painting technique, it’s easy to brush and splatter them with festive patterns.

The trick of making an espresso extract to add to the dough is a good one to know. If you want to use it for other things—a spoonful is good in brownies, chocolate sauces or even in chocolate chip cookies—make more than you need now and keep it in the refrigerator, where it will be fine for months. Of course these are good with coffee and coffee drinks, but they’re surprisingly nice with milk and not at all bad with cognac.

Making Stollen is not for the faint of heart. Avoiding it altogether because excellent store-bought Stollen abounds is further abetted by the invention of Stollenkonfekt, bite-size chunks of spiced, tender Quark dough studded with almonds and raisins and thickly cloaked in vanilla-scented confectioners’ sugar. They may be a relatively recent development in the world of Christstollen, which dates back to the Middle Ages, but they more than make up for their youth. In other words, want the rich, buttery, spicy flavor of Stollen without the work of a yeasted dough and the weeks of impatiently waiting for the loaves to be ready? If so, Stollenkonfekt is the thing for you.

The most iconic chocolate chip cookie is crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside, and loaded with melty morsels of chocolate chips throughout.

Set out a plate of these sweetly spiced cookies and watch them vanish fast.

These bars are as refreshing as an icy glass of lemonade, and perfect for entertaining, potlucks, or picnics.

Buttery pat-in-pan shortbread takes the place of mass-produced cookies and gets smothered in from-scratch caramel and silken chocolate in this jumbo version of a classic Halloween candy.

The iconic chocolate bar filled with peanut-studded caramel and nougat is all about chewiness. Here, we put all of those flavors into a bar that's big enough to eat with a fork.

Medrich's version of these golden orange yam and coconut cookies from Spain is delicate and flavorful.

Chewy cookie lovers: these are for you.

This chewy, nut-filled blondie recipe comes from EveryDayCook by Alton Brown.